August 18, 2011

At a time when probably more than ever before, the world has realised its need for ideals, Ratzinger is calling youngsters once again, not to bottle up any questions and concerns they may have, and not to cover their need to find a reason to life with a thick and ephemeral blanket of cynicism. In a world in which the only things that seem to matter are power, lust and money, the Pope will be inviting youngsters to devote their life to something or someone that really makes them happy and fulfilled. He will not point to an idea, a set of rules or dogma, or to aesthetic effect of some beautiful rite. Instead, he will be referring to one person, Jesus of Nazareth. And he will be explaining to youngsters at WYD that living Christianity does not mean giving something up, but receiving “hundredfold on Earth” a promise Jesus himself made to his people, also guaranteeing eternal life.

August 12, 2011

It's all too easy to judge the women who shared their stories in a recent New York Times Magazine piece, "The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy," on couples who chose to "reduce" (the polite euphemism, apparently, for "abort") one of their perfectly healthy, unborn twins. And we wouldn't be wrong for looking at the article as a disturbingly clear reflection of a society that has grown so selfish, fearful and closed to love that it can rationalize robbing a child of its sibling -- not necessarily because of financial stress, or a dire medical diagnosis, or rape, or any of the other usual reasons abortion advocates will often offer, but because, as one obstetrician quoted in the piece shares:

“I couldn’t have imagined reducing twins for nonmedical reasons,” she said, “but I had an amnio and would have had an abortion if I found out that one of the babies had an anomaly, even if it wasn’t life-threatening. I didn’t want to raise a handicapped child. Some people would call that selfish, but I wouldn’t. Parents who abort for an anomaly just don’t want that life for themselves, and it’s their prerogative to fashion their lives how they want. Is terminating two to one really any different morally?”

﻿

And yet, there's a distinct tone of sadness that emanates from writer Ruth Padawer's reporting. Padawer, who found out she was pregnant with twins when her oldest child was two, acknowledges that she's shared in the sheer panic that can overwhelm parents when they find out they're expecting multiples. But even most of the health professionals she interviewed who said they support abortion rights in general expressed serious reservations about reducing healthy twins to a "singleton." It's revealing, in an age when abortion advocates seek above all else to normalize the procedure and make it acceptable in the eyes of society, that almost all the couples Padawer spoke to wished to remain anonymous.

...[One patient], a New York woman, was certain that she wanted to reduce from twins to a singleton. Her husband yielded because she would be the one carrying the pregnancy and would stay at home to raise them. They came up with a compromise. “I asked not to see any of the ultrasounds,” he said. “I didn’t want to have that image, the image of two. I didn’t want to torture myself. And I didn’t go in for the procedure either, because less is more for me.” His wife was relieved that her husband remained in the waiting room; she, too, didn’t want to deal with his feelings.

Aside from the obvious -- that both the abortion and the child who remains will inevitably be a source of tension, misunderstanding and hurt in this couple's marriage (she "didn't want to deal with his feelings"?!) -- what strikes me is that despite all their rationalizing and certainty that aborting one of the twins was the right choice -- the choice that, above all, respected the mother -- there remains a very real, very visceral sense that it was wrong. That sense appears throughout the rest of the article, among both parents and medical professionals struggling to unite an ethical standard with their support of women's access to abortion.

At the National Catholic Register, Jennifer Fulwiler -- a convert to Catholicism from atheim -- takes a thought-provoking approach to the NYT piece, saying this is "What Pro-Choice Intellectual Honesty Looks Like." Pointing out the fact that many of these twins-to-singleton abortions are ironically the result of expensive in vitro fertilization (in which multiple embryos are implanted in the woman in hopes of at least one surviving), Fulwiler highlights one quote in particular from a woman who aborted one of her two, healthy babies:

She was 45 and pregnant after six years of fertility bills, ovulation injections, donor eggs and disappointment—and yet here she was, 14 weeks into her pregnancy, choosing to extinguish one of two healthy fetuses, almost as if having half an abortion. As the doctor inserted the needle into Jenny’s abdomen, aiming at one of the fetuses, Jenny tried not to flinch, caught between intense relief and intense guilt.

“Things would have been different if we were 15 years younger or if we hadn’t had children already or if we were more financially secure,” she said later. “If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldn’t have reduced this pregnancy, because you feel like if there’s a natural order, then you don’t want to disturb it. But we created this child in such an artificial manner—in a test tube, choosing an egg donor, having the embryo placed in me—and somehow, making a decision about how many to carry seemed to be just another choice. The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control.”

(As a sidenote, critics may scoff at Catholics' belief that both contraception and artificial means of conception ultimately cheapen the value of human life -- and yet the above quote nails the Church's reasoning within the space of three sentences).

The women in the story who chose to abort, Fulwiler says, were merely following pro-choice logic to its conclusion: "An abortion is merely a process of 'emptying the uterus' of 'tissue' — so what’s the big deal if there are multiple pieces of tissue and the doctor only eliminates one? According to the tenets of the pro-choice position, this should be completely fine."

Real intellectual honesty from abortion advocates, she concludes, would seriously consider that disconnect between the medical staff who regularly perform abortions but balk at the thought of arbitrarily choosing one twin's life over the other. There are glimpses of that honesty in Pedawer's article -- will we ever see it fully unveiled?

August 05, 2011

"Whatever you think of artificial birth control, [the Department of Health and Human Services'] command that everyone, including churches, must pay for it exalts ideology over conscience and common sense."

Likewise, this headline from Catholic News Service says it all: "Across political spectrum, HHS action draws religious liberty protests." When Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, protests the HHS' recent announcement that contraceptives and sterilization procedures will be considered mandatory preventative services for women, one is hardly surprised. When Stephen Schneck of CUA's Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies and Sister Carol Keehan, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, voice similar concerns -- that "those of us who joined 'Catholics for Sebelius' did not do so to see our conscience rights eviscerated," as Schneck wrote in the National Catholic Reporter -- you know someone's struck a nerve. (As the CNS article points out, Schneck had supported Kathleen Sebelius' nomination as head of HHS, despite her pro-abortion stance. Likewise, when Sister Keehan expressed the Catholic Health Association's ultimate support of President Obama's health care law, her action fueled commentary on a growing rift between the CHA and the U.S. bishops.)

July 11, 2011

Over the weekend, both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal published two very personal accounts of the effects of divorce on Generation X.

Though written by two different women, they share a similar theme: The rampant divorce rates of the '70s produced a generation of children convinced of -- and wounded by -- the shattering effects of their parents' split.

In the WSJ, Susan Gregory Thomas -- author of her own soon-to-be-released divorce memoir -- laments her own repetition of her parents' mistakes in marriage, despite her vows to shield her children from the searing consequences of divorce. Commenting on parenting trends among the 30-something set -- the tendency to hover, men shouldering a greater load in running the house and parenting than their fathers did, and the mentality to pour oneself out for the sake of "our family meals, for the stability of our home, for neighborhood play dates" -- she raises an interesting point: for better or worse, are these in reaction to Generation X's own, broken childhoods?

Then, in "The Divorce Delusion," New York Times contributor Heather Havrilesky takes issue with the almost carefree, congratulatory attitude that can accompany news of a divorce (and which I noted here when commenting on another New York Times article last month), or what she calls the enduring legacy of Oprah that attempts to immediately transform every challenge and painful moment into "a breakthrough on the road to self-fulfillment."

She writes:

Stories of divorced couples peacefully co-parenting and becoming wonderful lifelong friends contribute to this expectation that, if we’re not emotionally overachieving with a person who usually feels more like a mortal enemy than a soulmate, that means we’re petty, unenlightened thugs of the lowest order.

... sometimes the urge to reshape a tragedy into a story of hope just undermines the hope therein. We don’t need to reimagine every disaster as a tale of heroism. We don’t need to turn every funeral into a celebration. ... We all have a right to our own bad choices — and a right to feel bad about them too. As Lord Byron wrote, “Sorrow is knowledge.” So for God’s sake, let’s stop rushing to get to the good part.

July 06, 2011

Summer = good movies. At least that’s what we count on. Thankfully, this summer has so far proven to offer movie lovers some interesting choices both at the theater and, if you’re playing catch up like me, at your local redbox.

Excited to indulge in Sofia Coppola’s latest autobiographical film “Somewhere,” I braced myself for an evening of long takes, uncomfortable silences and extended sketches of “wealthy ennui” – all signature elements of Coppola’s narrative style and subject matter. But while her artistry is arguably at its best in this film, the story failed to leave me with the same satisfaction as did its predecessor.

“Lost in Translation” sustained itself in the balance of contradictions. As one critic put it: “It's a comedy about melancholy, a romance without consummation, a travelogue that rarely hits the road.” “Somewhere,” on the other hand, ends right where it begins, the opening scene a black Ferrari circling a racetrack and effectively winding up nowhere.

Perhaps Coppola intended the opener as a metaphor for the life of her protagonist Johnny Marco (played by Stephen Dorff). A successful Hollywood actor, Johnny lives the high life in a famed chateau/hotel that appears to meet every one of his desires, before he is even aware of them.

Instead of depicting the glossy celebrity life as seen from the outside (parties, friends, press attention, fan adulation, etc.) Coppola turns the lens inside out. A. O. Scott of the New York Times says it best:

"The tricky feat that Ms. Coppola pulls off is to convey the emptiness of Johnny’s situation without denying its appeal, and also without giving him more spiritual depth than would be credible…

Ms. Coppola illuminates the bubble of fame and privilege from the inside and maps its emotional and existential contours with unnerving precision and disarming sensitivity."

What you are left with in the end is the sketch of a man who is incredibly bored, lonely and empty, a life completely void of faith and, consequently, purpose. And as you wait in hope for a new dimension of the character to emerge, you realize that it’s not going to happen and that that is exactly the point: To enter into Johnny’s emptiness, and feel as trapped by it as he does. Until…

Enters Cleo, stage left.

Cleo (played by Elle Fanning) is Johnny’s eleven-year-old daughter. She’s a quiet, sweet, unspoiled and intuitive girl. Her grace and unconditional love for her father make her both captivating and endearing. Cleo arrives to Johnny’s apartment unexpectedly and is forced to stay for an undetermined length of time. Initially unsure how to handle the situation, Johnny winds up incorporating Cleo into his life while remaining attentive to her in the sweetest ways. They fall into a routine, quietly enjoying each other’s company, though rarely allowing their bond to deepen past surface level.

The time comes for them to part ways when Cleo begins summer camp. Later that night, without Cleo there, Johnny’s emptiness becomes all the more apparent to him. In an uncharacteristic moment of anguish, he begins sobbing on his bedroom floor, desperately seeking companionship –no one coming to his rescue.

The next morning, he spontaneously packs his car and leaves instructions with the concierge to place the rest of his belongings in storage. Then, off he goes. But where to? With what purpose? The last scene has Johnny driving on a desert road when he suddenly stops, gets out of his car and begins walking, the rare beginnings of a smile creeping up the corners of his mouth.

What disappoints is the fact that the film loses credibility by leaving no real indication that a true awakening has taken place within Johnny. It’s hard to really believe that something profound had occurred allowing him to take the necessary steps to “find his way.” Will he finally begin to be the father he never was? Will he finally go in search of the One who always satisfies?

Despite his short moment of truth, you’re still left assuming that Johnny is simply out for a change of scenery and that eventually, he’ll find himself right back where he started- like a car driving in circles.

As Johnny walked off into the dessert, the parable of the rich young man came to mind. And though it’s highly unlikely that the character will go, sell [his] possessions…then come, follow [Him] (Matthew 19:21), the moment is nonetheless ripe. Yet in the end, Johnny’s newfound “hope” (if it can be called that) is unconvincing.

To its credit, the film certainly renewed in me a tremendous appreciation for the gift of faith and the hope that derives from it. In the words of Pope Benedict:

According to the Christian faith, “redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey. – Spe Salvi, Benedict XI

Perhaps the whole point is to leave us wondering where exactly Johnny Marco’s “Somewhere” is. Even so, in the end, Coppola delivers too little too late. And while the film shines stylistically, the attempt to capture the isolation and emptiness of celebrity life as an end onto itself proved far too hopeless a story to endure for 98 minutes.

It's easy to lament the state of preparation for the sacrament -- or lack thereof -- in which all too many Catholic brides and grooms come to the altar. As one person involved in marriage enrichment courses put it to the Register: "﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿Priests ... have eight years of training for their vocation, and most Catholic couples have eight hours of training for their vocation."

The article further notes:

﻿As Catholic marriage rates decline, many of the couples who do marry in the Church today are older and cohabiting, often impacted by divorce and societal pressures, and have been away from the Church as young adults. Not surprisingly, they often lack both an understanding of the sacrament of matrimony and practical skills to live it out.

Yet overall, the Register article reveals signs of hope regarding the Church's approach to guiding couples through the sacrament of marriage: From the top, there's a new document in the works from the Pontifical Council for the Family, which will offer practical applications on how to cultivate a deeper understanding and committment to marriage -- not only among engaged couples, but even beginning in the formative years of childhood. At the local level, many dioceses are seeking ways their marriage prep programs can combine teaching necessary, practical skills -- communication, for instance -- with helping couples better appreciate the richness of the sacrament itself. From focusing on Pope John Paul II's theology of the body as a starting point for discussing marriage and human sexuality, to tackling head-on the reasons for the Church's stand on issues like contraception, IVF and cohabitation, more and more courses are providing couples with a solid arsenal of tools and knowledge to live out a healthy, holy marriage. There's a long way to go, but I'll take good news any day.

The legalization of same sex marriage in New York raises serious questions about the future viability of the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA was signed into law by President Clinton in 1996 and defined marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman. The law also protects states from having to recognize same-sex unions from another state. In theory DOMA presents an impediment to gay activists using New York’s same-sex marriage legislation to challenge laws in other states. However, the deep-seated desire among gay activists to capitalize on the momentum gained this week is causing renewed concerns that DOMA is under threat.

Indeed, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, has been on the forefront of those attempting to repeal DOMA. Gillibrand has co-sponsored the Respect for Marriage Act, which seeks to repeal DOMA. She also joined with Democracy for America to launch a national online campaign to rally support for the cause. According to Senator Gillibrand, “The reality is that the Defense of Marriage Act prevents all legally married same-sex couples in the U.S. from receiving over 1,000 federal rights and privileges that straight married couples enjoy. We must repeal this unjust law.”

Of more concern to supporters of traditional marriage are the thirty states which currently have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. If DOMA is repealed these states could potentially face future federal legislation mandating the recognition of same-sex marriages.

The threat to DOMA was clearly evidenced in February when President Obama said he would “no longer assert its (DOMA) constitutionality in court.” This was little more than a direct invitation to activists to challenge the law in court. Last year, a federal judge in Massachusetts found much of the law unconstitutional, and this month more than a dozen federal bankruptcy judges in California jointly ruled that a key section of DOMA was unconstitutional. In March Democrats in both houses of Congress put forward measures to repeal the law.

How did we get to this point in our society? Just 15 years ago a liberal Democratic president signed DOMA into law with wide support from both parties and the American people. Today six states have legalized same-sex marriage and DOMA is in jeopardy.

Joe Carter, writing for First Things, explains how ideas once thought unthinkable gradually gain acceptance and eventually become policy. I highly recommend this fascinating but sobering article “How to Destroy a Culture in 5 Easy Steps.” Perhaps, the approval of same-sex marriage in New York, and the looming repeal of DOMA, will serve as a necessary wake up call. As Carter writes:

"America has produced an overwhelming number of Christians who are adept at explaining why they can support issues that are antithetical to Christianity and depressingly few who can give reasons why we should adhere to the teachings of scripture and the wisdom of the church. History has shown that dedicated Christians can…reverse the shift from “policy” to “unthinkable.” But it requires a people who have courage and conviction and a willingness to be despised for the truth. Do current generations have such virtues? Probably not. But I’m holding out hope that our grandkids will be born that way.”

But don't expect to be able to go out and purchase one for yourself: the machine is "a custom-made M-Class plug-in hybrid based on the technology found inside the Mercedes Vision S500 plug-in hybrid."

In some ways, Pope Benedict doesn't so much "choose" the vehicle, as "receive" it; Mercedes has given vehicles to the pope for decades.

But while the gift doesn't express his personal taste so much as Mercedes' generosity, you car-buffs out there might be interested to recognize a confrere in his predecessor, Pius XII.

In this endearing address to Members of the Car Club of Rome in 1956, he spoke highly of automobiles—almost like a wine connoisseur would speak lovingly of wine; I can't decide whether he sounds more like a BMW advertisement, or simply like every reader “Auto Week” magazine I know:

The car is certainly one of the most expressive symbols of the modern age, his desire for comfort, speed, technical progress. We do not know what should be the most admired in its devices: their power and increasing their agility, the mechanical refinements, provided by the elegance of their profiles.

I love in particular how, the way he describes it really brings out the beautiful masculinity of mastering a machine 5 times your speed and 10 times your size. (Note: I couldn't resist leaving in the gendered language of the Italian when it refers to the automobile as a "she").

"No doubt the car will appear often less as a means of transport as a wonderful object of entertainment, which demands great skill and confidence, dominion over yourselves and physical endurance. You love to feel your power and dominion to ease the energy it contains in its sides, and you will win easily flattered by her resistance, her whims, sometimes her stubbornness, and thus have the opportunity to prove your mastery of the steering wheel, your experience of the road and your mechanical skills."

For you fans of "American-Made" vehicles, you might be happy to know that Pius XII's favored vehicle was a Graham-Paige, gifted to the papacy just days after the great stock market crash of the 1920s - an interestingly parallel to Mercedes' continued care for the popes despite today's economic difficulties.

And next time you take your own for a spin, you might keep in mind his own papal “rules of the road”:

"But you do not forget…to respect road users, be courteous and fair with other drivers and pedestrians, and show them your obliging nature. Pride yourselves in being able to master an often natural impatience, in sometimes sacrificing a little of your sense of honor so that kindness is a sign of true charity. Not only so you can avoid unpleasant accidents, but also it will help to make the car a tool even more useful for yourself and for others, and is capable of giving a genuine pleasure."

“What happened?” asks the writer Claire Dederer in her memoir, “Poser,” which examines life as a new mother in Seattle. In the 1970s, “the feminists, the hippies, the protesters, the cultural elite all said, It’s O.K. to drop out.” In contrast, “We made up our minds, my brother and I and so many of the grown children of the runaway moms, that we would put our families first and ourselves second. We would be good, all the time. We would stay married, no matter what, and drink organic milk.”

“The notion of divorce has become one of failure again,” said 42-year-old Stacy Morrison of Park Slope, an author of another divorce memoir. “It used to be, ‘You’re free, rock on!’ Now it’s, ‘You couldn’t make it work, you failed.’ ”

The article continued on by declaring, "Among a certain demographic, marriage is viewed as something that, like work-life balance, yoga and locavore cuisine, needs to be continually worked at and improved upon."

Bizarre comparisons aside, the piece does a good job discussing last year's study by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, which revealed a trend of college-educated Americans divorcing at significantly lower rates than the rest of the population. For instance:

Now that the children of a divorce generation have grown up and have children of their own, it is inevitable some will divorce, despite their worst fears and best intentions. Most marriages that end in divorce fall apart in the first 10 years. But according to the widely cited Marriage Project study last year, among college-educated couples who married in the mid-1990s, the likelihood of divorcing in the first 10 years of marriage fell 27 percent compared with college-educated couples who married in the 1970s.

In a 2008 survey, only 17 percent of college-educated Americans agreed with the statement, “Marriage has not worked out for most people I know,” compared with 58 percent among the less educated.

So that's the good news. What I find unsettling is the article's conclusion.

Because these "children of divorce" -- the latchkey kids of the '70s and '80s -- suffered profoundly the effects of their parents' split, they will go to great lengths to ensure their own children's happiness after they undergo a divorce, themselves. At what point, though, does this just because a band-aid solution for the parents' own wounds -- assuaging their guilt for putting their children through a similar situation to what they faced in their youth?

Dr. Monet, of Mount Holyoke, and her ex-husband eat dinner together on Fridays with their 9-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. Birthdays and holidays are spent in each other’s company.

“Once I realized that we could raise the kids together and still be a family,” said Dr. Monet, who started a blog called Postcards From a Peaceful Divorce last year, “I realized it wasn’t divorce that’s devastating, it’s the way divorce is handled.”

When Nina Collins, 41, a former literary agent, divorced her husband, she said both her lawyer and therapist emphasized: “Divorce is completely different from when your parents split up. If your kids feel loved and they don’t see hideous behavior, they’ll be fine.”

A common belief is that if the divorce is done properly, the children benefit more from the separation than from living in a family with a compromised marriage. Ms. Gilman, echoing the sentiments of many divorced mothers, said, “In the end, I actually think it was a very positive thing we did for the kids.”

I'll be clear -- if it's a matter of kids living in an abusive environment, then their safety is absolutely a priority. But, "humane" or not, let's not glamorize the fact that even modern-day children of divorce still lack the stability and security of a two-parent home, as well as the love of their mother and father for each other that serves as a foundation for that home.

June 21, 2011

In her column on Headline Bistro today, Pia de Solenni comments on the U.S. bishops' recent document on physician-assisted suicide, including the less-often discussed ramifications of euthanasia that have been reported in places where the practice has been legalized.

According to this article from Mercartornet, reprinted today on CrisisMagazine.com, she can add the disturbing practice of recycling donated organs from euthanized patients, which has been quietly underway in Belgium for the past there years.

The author quotes a British doctor who heads the UK-based Christian Medical Fellowship:

I was amazed at how nonchalantly the issue was dealt with as if killing patients and then harvesting their organs was the most natural thing in the world. … The matter of fact way the retrieval process is described in the paper is particularly chilling and shows the degree of collaboration that is necessary between the euthanasia team and the transplant surgeons – prep them for theatre next to the operating room, then kill them and wheel them in for organ retrieval. All in a day’s work in Brave New Belgium.